The faded white paint peels perniciously
from these haunting hospital hallways…
Wards filled with beds filled with bodies filled with sickness:
a stitch in time saves none.

Disinfectant (the omnipresent ghost)
saunters around like a drunk,
making sure to get noticed by all.
Helium-filled GET WELL SOON! balloons
limply deflating among deflated bodies wearing
weathered blood-stained gowns.

Sweet creation
flittering above the river &
between the overgrowth,
floating, naïve to these contemplations.
Explosions of noise on those fragile wings;
the air tastes of dark blue misery.
Yet you’re so peaceful
in the Garden of Eden
before the Fall of Man…
Before Man became man.
Come here, sweet beauty!
Stay a while.

I want to fit out
but I can’t escape
the twisty smoke and cool alcohol.
I’m so unique like you
and you and you.
Mirrors always tell me what they tell you.
My Insta is a flood of what gets likes
and my tattooed infinity sign is finite
on this skin.
I want to fit out
but friends keep making me:
they hold me high…
The parties aren’t fun,
the clubs play music that sells by formula,
the beat of it all is always the same.
Day in and out
mom and dad don’t talk:
whose parents do?
I want to fit out
but Disney has me hooked
singing frozen melodies I can’t let go.
And my bank account
is as low as me.
I want to fit out,
help me out the window:
I know it’s cliché but I want to leave.
I don’t want to be a statistic.
I just want to fit out.

The character enters and sets up a video camera which faces him. He pushes a button on the camera and says something to indicate it’s recording. There is a mirror on stage. The mirror reflects the audience back at themselves. The character addresses the audience directly.

Only two types of people are noticed in this world. Only the best and the worst of humanity are recorded. Mandelas and Hitlers; Mother Tereasas and Bin Ladens; Gods and monsters. Never people like me. Too ordinary, too normal. People like me are merely the darkness of the night sky allowing for the best and the worst to shine brightly.

I’m nothing special… I have enough friends to not be an outcast… But I feel so alone. Sitting at a party with my friends hearing everyone talking about their lives, I just feel distant. Like I’m on the outside looking in. That’s exactly it. Standing in the cold rainstorm of my own rage looking into a huge glass window at everyone warm and happy inside.

My friends don’t know I’m hurting inside. It’s always been easy for me to pretend. I’ve been pretending my whole life. Pretended I was okay with being told I was adopted… Pretended I was okay with my brother’s death at cancer’s hands… Pretended I was okay when I read this letter from my biological mother… (Reading from a letter he removes from his pocket.) “You’re not mine, you never were. I didn’t ask to be raped, I didn’t want you. I don’t want to make contact with you ever.”

I don’t think I could ever describe how deeply that hurts me… That I’m the by-product of crime… A forced mistake. My father, a criminal probably not even aware that I exist, that he has a child. (Pause). I’m a nobody (looking in mirror) an ugly nobody fuckup with no sense of belonging. (Pause).

(Addressing the camera more directly now). Now I want you to understand that I’m thankful to you both for trying to make me feel like I belong when I’m clearly a mistake. But neither of you can change the truth. You might have raised me, but I’m not yours. I’m nothing. A human who was forced into this world by a man’s need to dominate.

He takes the mirror and places it on the floor roughly. He proceeds to take his foot and ram it into the mirror in order to break it. He picks up a piece of broken mirror.

This is all I am. A shattered reflection of this fucked up world. And I’m tired of reflecting a world that doesn’t care… I don’t want to be here when the future arrives… (Looking directly at the camera.) Mom… Dad… I’m not sorry for this, I’m sorry for being the cracked reflection of this world.

Not sure why he sits –
like a statue –
he sits.
Still.
The pigeons join him.
He doesn’t look lonely,
but he looks lost.
I can’t help but stare,
each day I stare.
Until I decide to talk to him…
He doesn’t respond –
I think he’s dead – that would explain it.
But nobody has done anything…
Nobody has done anything…
Then I see it: my reflection in his eyes.
A fateful truth I’ve been avoiding:
I am nobody.

This poem is dedicated to everyone who has lost their lives to cancer as well as to those who are currently in remission. One day cancer will be human history.

YOU MAY KILL
BUT ONE DAY YOU’LL DIE
YOU’LL BE PART OF HUMAN HISTORY
PEOPLE WILL LOOK BACK
AND SEE YOUR DESTRUCTION
BUT KNOW YOU’RE DEADER THAN DEATH
THEY’LL BE THANKFUL TO
THE SCIENTISTS WHO HAD THE PASSION
TO BEAT YOU INTO NON-EXISTENCE.
BUT FOR NOW YOU MUST MUTATE IN FEAR
KNOWING YOUR EXPIRATION IS NEAR!

I stare out of the misted window at the snow
And somehow I see your young face and I know
That you’re safe now away from the pain
Because you’re safely aboard Heaven’s luxury train.
Your smiling face brightens up my dark days;
It gives me strength, makes me brave in indescribable ways.

I can carry on knowing you’re with me;
Through me perhaps you can be.
Even in the salty tears of my heartache
I see your strength and it makes my demons seem fake.
You went too soon via a way too cruel:
This is my motivation, my fuel
Because one day I will heal the scars,
Turning the burnt out souls into stars.

It was the hardest thing to see leave,
But I know that you could no longer breathe.
One day I’ll see you again and we can share
Our stories we couldn’t bear.

In your final hours I felt your soul shine;
And it was then I knew it would all be fine.